


Undersketch

by SevenOceansOfInk



Category: Within the Wires (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Diary/Journal, F/F, Female-Centric, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Science Fiction, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8033083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenOceansOfInk/pseuds/SevenOceansOfInk
Summary: A selection of recorded personal journals by Hester, detailing the unfolding of her thoughts between her last day with Oleta and the events of Within the Wires





	1. Mouth/Solvent

There are restrictions on the consumption of alcohol in the Society. It is not banned, not entirely. After all, you can still purchase a glass or two of wine at a restaurant. It is still exceedingly normal for friends to share cocktails with one another. Alcohol can have a soothing effect on the human consciousness, allow thoughts to slow down, prevent them from piling up upon one another. This relaxation is conducive, in fact, to the nature of the Society.

However, it is similarly well known that the consumption of alcohol in excess can draw out violent tendencies which are deeply not conducive to the stability of the Society. It is good to lubricate the flow of thoughts. It is bad, however, to do this so much that one's thoughts move more quickly than our ability to process whether they are rational, sensible, well within the bounds of what is considered good conduct.

So, there are restrictions. Sensible restrictions. A limit of two bottles of wine, or one bottle of hard liquors, purchased per individual or couple, per day.

This seems like a fair and reasonable restriction. Two bottles of wine, or a single bottle of liquor, is more than enough to supplement a dinner and dessert, or to pour a few drinks between friends, companions, lovers. Two bottles of wine, or one bottle of liquor, is enough the loosen the stress of everyday life, of work, to ease the flow of friendly thoughts, of intimate feelings, of all things good between people. I'm holding a glass of wine right now, actually, as I record this. White. A moscato. Sweet, with a crispness of apple and pear to it.

I was abroad the first time I had wine. I was abroad the first time I remembered you.

It was strange. It didn't happen all at once. It was just a thought, or two, in the corners of my consciousness after a glass, or two, of a rich, deep, red wine. The aroma of it was potent, heavy. My cheeks felt warm drinking it. A density and spice played on my lips as it flowed over them, a little at a time - I drink politely. Honestly, you don't think that I would? Honestly. - A warmth flowed forth from it and rolled over the surface of my tongue and down into my belly, where it spread through every vein running through me. I imagine that's how it works, I think. I paid enough attention in Biology that I'm pretty confident that's how alcohol is absorbed.

As it spread through me, as the headiness and density and the spice and the potency of it saturated my body, something peeled up around the corners of my mind, layers of paint curling and cracking around the edges. There was color underneath that had been glossed over, and the color was startling, jarring, unsettling to remember.

So I had another glass, to try and hurry those thoughts along. I wasn't supposed to remember. No one is supposed to remember.

There are rules and restrictions on purchasing alcohol in the Society. And like any rules or restrictions, there are ways around them.

You have to be a bit clever, a bit creative. You have to be willing to stockpile, to plan. You can't go to the same store twice, back to back, one day after the other. You can't even do so twice in a week. People start to think oddly. People start to wonder how much you are having to drink.

So you spread things out. Most towns have a few liquor stores. You go to one, then another, then the other. Buy two bottles each. Maybe only one bottle, one day. Mix things up a little. Rotate which ones you go to on which day. Perhaps one week, skip a store entirely. It slows things down a little but ultimately the stockpile nonetheless grows.

That's how you start to peel away layers. Alcohol is a solvent, after all. It dissolves chemical combinations. Layers separate from one another.

You start with one glass. And then, another glass. And from one bottle, you continue to another bottle.

And each time, the picture underneath becomes clearer.

_// END JOURNAL //_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Undersketch_ is a fanfiction of _Within the Wires_ , which is a podcast written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson, and performed by Janina Matthewson. This work of fanfiction is not in any way associated with _Within the Wires_ , or _Night Vale Presents_.
> 
> Okay. Your journaling time is complete for today. Please enjoy a refreshing beverage and relax to the sounds of nature to help you unwind.
> 
> Today's track of nature sounds is //TELEVISION WHITE NOISE AT FULL VOLUME//  
> Today's refreshing beverage is //STALE COFFEE LEFT TO BURN//


	2. Eyes/Composition

I took up painting in the years since I saw you last. It wasn't exactly an easy thing to pick up, I have to admit. I've always been of an analytical sort of person and creating, actually laying pigment onto canvas or ink onto paper requires an entirely different mindset than deconstructing the object that has already been created.

Don't you find that interesting? We use different sides of our brain to create and to dissect what we create. To imagine, and to understand.

I undertook it as a form of therapy. Allowing my emotions to flow out into a canvas, into abstract forms and expressions, would take some of the burdens off of my mind. So I was told. I honestly didn't know what to think of any of it, because I didn't much see the point. I didn't need to create. I didn't have anything to create.

"Just put colors down," the counselor said. "You'll feel better," the counselor said. As you might already know - as I hope you don't already know, but I'm sure you already know, because I know you - it isn't healthy to disagree with an appointed counselor, so I decided to play along.

There is nothing more frustrating than a blank canvas.

It sits there and taunts you. An empty void interlaid with fibers, waiting to capture an image on its surface, but dependent on you to do so. The first few times, you do as the counselor said. You place abstract shapes of color and light into meaningless... not meaningless, but without meaning to anyone who isn't you... into patterns indecipherable by anyone who is not yourself. Perhaps all art is this art. Maybe all criticism of art is pretense, and only the artist knows for sure what drove them to create a given work.

Over time, you grow bored with abstract shapes and colors, and you allow your work to evolve into other means of expressing your emotions. Mine evolved into still life compositions. I purchased numerous flowers from a shop in the middle of this town. I bought odds and ends from various yard sales and swap meets. I have a plethora now of things stored up in the attic with no rhyme or reason to them; I simply liked their shapes and enjoyed arranging them against one another. I indulged spontaneity. I embraced the side of myself that I suppose you always tried to encourage in me, in our respective childish ways.

Which was frustrating because, ultimately, this exercise in doing something that I otherwise had little interest in doing, was about distracting myself from you. I never told the counselor outright that I remembered you, of course. That would be dangerous. That would compromise so much. No; I simply said that I was having visions of a woman that I wasn't sure was a dream or not. The counselor prescribed painting as a means of taking my mind off of one thing by occupying it with another.

It did not work.

It did not work because I am now sitting in front of a canvas that I finished and it is a figure of you; at least, it is a figure of what I imagine you look like now, all these years later after having not seen you in such a long time. It is a nude painting of you walking out of the sea, like Venus rising up out of the waves on a shell. Birthed by the ocean, arising out of foam like the Little Mermaid in reverse. I look at it. I sigh. I take it off the easel and take it up into the attic and set it with the others, with the dozens of other paintings of the 'you' I imagine you are. That I hope that you are.

I will probably paint another like it. I am almost certain that I will paint another like it. One day, I hope that I can paint you, face to face, sitting in the garden, digging your hands into the dirt and smiling and laughing.

For now, however, I will simply paint some flowers.

_// END JOURNAL //_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Undersketch is a fanfiction of Within the Wires, which is a podcast written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson, and performed by Janina Matthewson. This work of fanfiction is not in any way associated with Within the Wires, or Night Vale Presents.
> 
> Okay. Your journaling time is complete for today. Please enjoy a refreshing beverage and relax to the sounds of nature to help you unwind.
> 
> Today's track of nature sounds is //PERIODICALLY RATTLING AIR DUCT//  
> Today's refreshing beverage is //STOMACH CHYME//


End file.
